I’d wager there is room for this album in
any Prokofiev collection. The four etudes, Op 2, and four pieces, Op
3, are products of the teenage composer, and recorded by almost nobody,
which can also be said of the sonatinas and a fragmentary sketch to
the unfinished tenth sonata. Most sonata cycles (Raekallio, McDermott)
don’t include these pieces, so unless you have traversals of the
complete piano music by Oleg Marshev or Boris Berman, this CD will fill
a gap.

The early pieces are not necessarily essential, but they do show how
quickly and eagerly young Prokofiev began defying his teachers and charging
toward his adult style. The etudes are hard-charging affairs with rhythmic
punch; the more laid-back but still harmonically spicy Pieces
are either given descriptive names like “Tale” and “Jest”
or dance titles like “Gavotte”.

Ironically, the last music he ever wrote - the fragment of a planned
tenth piano sonata - is more old-fashioned: halfway through we meet
the second melody, a plaintive, expansive lyric which seems to end with
its fingers outstretched. The two sonatinas are fully mature works from
the early 1930s, which makes their neglect peculiar. Like Beethoven’s
mid-period “sonatinas” (sonatas 19 and 20), they’re
less than ten minutes each and scaled down but worthy of attention;
the E minor sonatina has a dark lyricism that I enjoyed.

Kim’s recital ends with the Sonata No. 5, but in its very late
revised edition, with a deceptive neoclassical simplicity, clarity,
and dark undertone that brings to mind the Seventh Symphony. His playing
throughout is impressive: the technical demands are handled with aplomb
(and in many of these works, the demands are considerable), and while
it’s easy to imagine a more poetic touch in some parts of the
sonata, there’s certainly nothing mechanical or rote about anything
here. This is a very useful supplement to anyone’s Prokofiev collection,
and the fact that it’s so well-played and well-recorded makes
it all the more valuable.